Bowling score devices, both electromechanical and electronic have been proposed and developed for automatically computing and displaying bowling scores. However, the full benefits of electronic score processing can be realized only if all lane score processing units are in communication with a central manager's station. In this way the manager can monitor and control the activity at each lane. A prior art effort in this direction is disclosed in Fischer U.S. Pat. No. 3,907,290.
Fischer discloses a bowling scoring system wherein a central control unit controls the computing and display of game scores at all lanes. The processor of a central unit communicates through an interface with the memories at each lane pair console so that they serve as the memory for the central processor. Each lane pair console, in addition to the lane pair memory, has a character generator for driving a CRT display and keyboard and automatic pin sensor inputs. The only display at each lane is a CRT display. A single central printer is located at the central processor. The central processor has no game score data memory of its own. No game score processing can occur at any lane. Therefore, the system has the limitation that score processing and display at each lane must await its shared time at the central processor. Further, since a single printer is located at the central processor, printing is also delayed. It has been found that this seemingly simplified approach results in a scoring system which is unnecessarily expensive to build and maintain because of the redundancy which must be provided at the central processor both for processor and printer lest the entire system break down with the failure of any single component at the manager's station. Moreover, no specific means are disclosed for transferring video display material between the manager's console and the lane score processors, to maintain the manager's communication with and supervision over individual lanes.
A similar earlier effort is disclosed in Walker U.S. Pat. No. 3,700,236, which discloses a system having a single computation means for a plurality of lanes, each lane pair may be selectively set for open or league mode of bowling. All computation is carried out at the single computation center, with the computed score results being transmitted to a printer at each lane. This system suffers from the same deficiency of centralizing all score processing at a single central unit with its attendant delays in processing and the risk of a breakdown of the entire house with any failure at the manager's station.